Interactive voice response (IVR) systems allow people to interact with a computerized system using voice. An IVR system allows a person interacting with the IVR system to provide input by using keys on a telephonic keypad or a computer keyboard, and/or by speaking. IVR systems typically present acoustic output to the person by playing either pre-recorded or dynamically-generated speech, and/or may provide output using other sources of audio.
An IVR system can support one or more IVR applications, with each IVR application designed to serve a particular function. As one example, businesses often deploy IVR applications to automate one or more interactions with their customers. For example, a customer may use an IVR application to obtain specific information (e.g., an account balance, a flight status, a movie showing time, etc.) or perform a more complex operation such as placing an order for a product or service, selling a stock, resolving a billing question, etc.
In a typical usage scenario, a customer's call is routed to an IVR system supporting the IVR application used to service the customer's call. The IVR application collects specific information it desires from the caller to service the call and, in turn, provides the caller with information the caller seeks or performs a task the caller requests. For example, a customer of a shipping company may call the shipping company to inquire about the status of a package the customer is waiting to receive. The call may be routed to an IVR system supporting an IVR application for helping customers track packages. To service this call, the IVR application prompts the customer to provide information such as the tracking number. After obtaining all the desired information, the IVR application determines the status of the package and provides the customer with the requested information about the identified package.